UX Research Report Study Case: Disney+ Hotstar

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Hello, I am Harits Sudharsono Mozart or you can call me Harits. I am participating in the UI/UX design Bootcamp held by Dibimbing.id. This article would be my first portfolio as a UX Researcher.

Hotstar is an Indian brand of streaming service carrying content from Disney Star’s local networks, including films, television series, live sports, and original programming, as well as featuring content licensed from third parties such as HBO and Showtime among others. Amid the significant growth of mobile broadband in India, Hotstar quickly became the dominant streaming service in the country. Following the acquisition of Star India’s parent company 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019, Hotstar was integrated with the company’s new global streaming brand Disney+ as ‘Disney+ Hotstar’ in April 2020. The co-branded service added Disney+ original programming, and films and television series from its main content brands of Walt Disney Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and National Geographic alongside the domestic and third-party content already carried on the platform. Outside of India, the Disney+ Hotstar service also operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, which similarly combines entertainment content licensed from local, third-party studios, with the larger Disney+ library. In Indonesia, Disney+ Hotstar become one of the largest brands of streaming services aside from Netflix.

Role :
UX Researcher

Scope :
User Research, Analyzing

Tools :
Google Workplace (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Form), Zoom, Figma

In this study, we conduct research on Disney+ Hotstar user behavior (frustrations, needs, and expectations) when using this app. This research insight and report will be used to improve Disney+ Hotstar to become a better app that fulfills user needs and expectations.

As UX researchers, our main goal is to understand more about Disney+ Hotstar users and their behaviors, based on our research validation. Therefore, our objectives from this research are:

• To understand various Disney+ Hotstar user’s behavior while using the app,
• To find out what the user needs, pain points, like or dislikes while using the app,
• To understand user needs that haven’t been fulfilled on Disney+ Hotstar and how to solve it.

In this research, we use 2 ways for the methodology. They are:

• Survey as a preliminary question, to gather all the basic information and the behavior of the respondent. In this method, we also collect the data of the users who are interested to be interviewed.
• In-depth Interview becomes the most appropriate method to obtain user insights related to the defined objectives and to find the user’s pain point. It also helps us to understand the user based on their knowledge and feelings while using the Disney+ Hotstar app.

• Disney+ Hotstar User (Active Old & New User)
• Male / Female
• 18–55 years old
• Nationwide & all professions
• Use/have other movie streaming apps besides Disney+ Hotstar

There are 10 questions that will be asked to respondents, such as:

1. Where do you know about Disney+ Hotstar?
2. Are you using any other streaming platform besides Disney+ Hostar?
3. What makes you choose Disney+ Hotstar as one of your movie streaming platforms?
4. How often do you use Disney+ Hotstar to watch your favorite movies?
5. What kind of show do you usually watch on Disney+ Hotstar?
6. How often do you miss your favorite show on Disney+ Hotstar?
7. How updated are you about the latest show on the Disney+ Hotstar app?
8. Is there any existing feature on Disney+ Hotstar app that need to be upgraded or renewed?
9. Is there any new feature that you want to add to Disney+ Hotstar app?
10. Is it possible for you to recommend the Disney+ Hotstar app to your family or friends?

The process of recruiting respondents for In-depth Interview was done by distributing a questionnaire link from Survey (Google Form) to Disney+ Hotstar users via social media or social messages to get the appropriate active users.

Affinity Diagram

Behavior

The first theme is behavior. This theme is divided into Watching Duration, Preferred Movie Genre, and Other Streaming Movie Apps. Based on the affinity diagram mentioned above, we got some insights about Disney+ Hotstar user’s behaviors when they use the app:

• Some of the users spend less than 2 hours a day watching Disney+ Hotstar.
• Some of them like to watch movies and K-Dramas on Disney+ Hotstar rather than series.
• Most of the Disney+ Hotstar users also subscribed to other movie streaming platforms such as Netflix, HBO GO, VIU, Vidio, WeTV, etc.

Paint Points

Here are the difficulty experienced by users when they use the Disney+ Hotstar app based on Affinity Diagram:

• Some users feel their eyes uncomfortable when streaming on this app for a long time because there is no setting for enabling light or dark mode view.
• Some users are still concerned about what their children watch because they think the parental control from this app is still not strong enough to control what their children can access.
• Users feel the movie titles layout on the homepage is too monotone with no latest movies or recommended movies preview.
• No movie recommendations are based on user-watching behavior, which makes users confused while searching for something to watch.
• No movie info on the movie’s preview page, instead it automatically played the full movie, which annoyed some users.
• No category list to inspire users while searching for something to watch.
• Unresponsive play/ pause button.
• No confirmation button when the user presses ‘Continue to Watch’ button.
• No party feature, so users can’t watch streaming online with their friends.

Needs/Expectation

Here are the needs that are expected by users to be improved while using the application:

• Users want a toggle button for enabling light or dark mode view on the Disney+ Hotstar app.
• Users who have kids want advanced parental control settings so they can set full control of what their children watch.
• Users want to personalize the app’s home, based on user-watching behavior.
• Movie search with personalized movie recommendations based on user-watching behavior.
• Category list to inspire users while searching for something to watch.
• Responsive play/ pause button
• Confirmation button while the user presses ‘Continue to Watch’ button.
• Party feature, so users can watch streaming online with their friends.